NORTHVILLE — Christian Klueg speaks softly and carries a hockey stick.

His love of the game, according to Northville Baptist Church Associate Pastor George Hopper, is what got him his latest volunteer gig: maintenance man for the village ice skating rink at the church.

Hopper said Klueg, the son of Pastor Richard Klueg, got married a couple of years ago and soon dove into volunteer work with the church.

In addition to maintaining the ice rink, Klueg directs two youth groups at the church, for junior high school students and high school students, and runs the Pink Chicken, which is a youth social club that meets on Friday nights.

He also volunteers his time for the church’s skateboard park ministry, Hopper said.

Northampton Supervisor Linda Kemper is not involved with the church, but said, “They do a lot with their youth groups.”

She said work by Klueg and others does not go unnoticed and amounts to public service.

“I think any time that volunteer services can be provided that would not put a burden on the taxpayers, I think it’s wonderful,” Kemper said.

She also said that broad support is essential because it’s easy to burn out when just a few people are handling multiple tasks.

“All your volunteers . . . there’s only so much they can do. But that’s what makes a community, its volunteers,” Kemper said.

She said volunteers are usually motivated by their love for a particular activity.

“When someone has a passion for something, obviously they’re going to be committed. In his case, it was a love for hockey. The bottom line is there’s a passion for people to get involved in the community. And a community can’t function without volunteers,” Kemper said.

Klueg, a youthful 26 and a real estate appraiser by trade, said he developed a love of hockey skating first with his father at the village rink as a child.

Later, he and friends in the neighborhood built their own rink for hockey games at home.

“So I kind of knew what it took. And it would fit in perfect with our youth ministry,” he said.

He said many people and businesses in the community pitched in to move the rink location from the school to the church.

A contractor donated his time, equipment and fuel doing backhoe work, 30 hours in all, to clear the land. Others spent time over the course of two days wiring and stringing lights for the rink.

“Without them, we still would have trees in the middle of the field,” Klueg said. “The only thing we’re paying for is the water,” more than 25,000 gallons so far, according to the church’s meter, he added.

He doesn’t have a Zamboni, but he does have two garden hoses, and Klueg can be found at the rink at 4:30 a.m. or 6:30 a.m., or even 10 at night putting down a fresh coat of water if it’s not snowing and it’s nice and cold.

The work is worth it, he said, and recalled the night the rink opened to some novice skaters. The kids could pick and choose a pair of skates from a big box of donated blades if they didn’t have their own and many did.

“They weren’t very good at it, but their faces were lit up with smiles. There was lots of laughter every time somebody fell and they got better as the night wore on,” he said.

He said the skating rink is just part of the evolution of the church’s programs and services.

“Every year we’ve been trying to better utilize the property as finances allow, to provide things for the kids to do,” he said.

Another church member and volunteer, Molly Whittaker, has known Klueg and his wife, Megan, for 15 years. She and her husband, Rob, were the senior and junior youth group leaders for many years before recently handing the reins to the Kluegs.

“They were our first youth group kids, which is really kind of cool,” Whittaker said.

She recounted how the Pink Chicken grew out of a Friday night skate park program. The church opened the teen outreach center in an old restaurant it acquired.

Friday nights regularly attract 100-150 children, she said, who play video games, ballgames in a small gym and enjoy skating and free food.

Klueg is tireless, Whittaker said.

“He’s there at 2 o’clock in the morning running water,” she said. “He and his wife, they’re kind of a team. They’re really dedicated to bringing the kids to a new level and offering kids positive options, which is nice, because there’s so many things that aren’t so great.”

When asked to explain his deep involvement with volunteering, Klueg, who graduated from Northville Central School in 2000, said he grew up in the church.

“I had been involved in the youth programs when I was in school and benefited from them,” he said.

But it still took more than a little coaxing from Rob Whittaker, who encouraged him initially to supervise the junior youth group, for Klueg to make the leap.

“He said you’re always going to have a good reason not to get involved. He said you’ve just got to do it and God will bless you for it,” Klueg said.

It took several months of talks like that before he said yes.

And then his skateboard ministry — complete with half-pipe competitions and band concerts — morphed into the Pink Chicken.

Klueg, who even goes north of the Fulton County border once a week to serve as the youth director for the senior group at the Indian Lake Baptist Church, said he started it with the help of his wife and the Whittakers, at least initially.

Thankfully, help, along with scores of youngsters, was on the way.

“People started coming out of the woodwork to help us. It takes a real good group of 20 to 30 people to do what it takes to make the wheel go ’round,” he said.

He laughed when asked about the various projects he’s worked on.

“Things take six months or a year and you see the outcome, and you move on to the next thing. We’re continually looking for new ways to help the community, reach out to the youths and reach out to the families,” he said.

He said there’s a three-pronged approach to helping people. The first two are meeting physical and emotional needs.

“Our third, and some people would say most important, goal is to meet people’s spiritual needs,” he said.

“We can’t tell you what to believe. We just want to tell you what we believe. . . . We want to show them, if they so choose it.”

Klueg and his wife may not have quite so much time for volunteering after April 8. That’s when Megan is supposed to deliver the couple’s first child, a boy, Ezekiel Adam Klueg.

“We’re definitely excited about starting a family,” Klueg said.